government fury. after the assassination of a prominent opposition figure which some blaming the ruling party. one of the german chancellor's main political rivals attacked her policies claiming they've been simply too hard on the euro zone's weakest member. find out why greece could be the key battleground states in this year's german general election. and other starters orders russia get set to mark exactly a yeah stage is what's become the most expensive olympic games in history the report from the host city of sochi.

from the new center here in moscow this is r.t. with twenty four hours a day with international news and comment in tunisia police have clashed with protesters and fired tear gas after angry mobs attacked the offices of the ruling islamist party thousands of taking to the streets across the country to protest against the government the public fury followed the assassination of the leading opposition figure chokri belaid with some holding the government responsible the opposition has called for a general strike and four parties are suspending their membership in the country's making body international relations professor mark almond says the government will be hard pressed to survive until the upcoming elections in june. tension between the opposition the ruling. has been growing or elections in a few months time in the two years since the revolution the economy. i was january and in addition to the tourist business. matter to cut hotels empty until

you have factories that used to supply components to european companies shot unemployment is rising to news it had been presented as the nearest thing to a success story there had been too much violence but unfortunately as i say these disappointments with the failure to make life better life has got worse and the sense that there is a trajectory that takes many people in trinity away from what they wanted and to lose big tension about the coming elections and whether we'll get to those elections without a real political crisis on the streets and perhaps changing the government and one problem for the poor is that it doesn't have many natural resources so that it's rather neglected by the west as nobody has any great interest in trying to prop it up and so its regimes fall to column e. is now in the nosedive and it's surrounded by recently tense areas to the east and south and it's getting no real help from them all this seems to me to be very trying to position which nations were not as i get the latest from far some t.

she's a reporter with tunisia live joining us from tunis forward just to establish the fact that the communication is good enough can you hear me that all right yeah you ok tell us what is the situation in the streets of the capital at the moment. right now looks openly come down but earlier the police had to use tear gas to disperse the crowds and there have been a few right in the streets of the capital tunis. what about the authorities response all they making any attempt to appease the protest as. well as. the government of the sheikh and down and begin to stand this morning the prime minister. and also we have. political. analysts so far there hasn't been that he has

a clear decision that the. people down there we understand that the opposition's actually refusing to talk to the government and yet that has been a gesture from the ruling party to enter into some sort of dog is that true. while the opposition parties have met today and they ended up deciding any to suspend their membership and they can at the national press you can be soundly and even call for a general strike sex have pets we haven't heard. something equally tracon. choose to participate if it's in such a big score that she just sounds similar to. this. who critical of the opposition. blaming the ruling party for this assassination and yet the ruling party is pointing to figure out what it calls a full room do you know anything about that. i think. he obviously can find out

who i am and know how many. there are five of them how to get him back and they take you to bed and i have violent. need to be more patient. because change takes time. and i live with the government. the government says that not while. true they try. to. be chaos you wonder why when bearing in mind that many people perceive this revolution as being generally successful and yet now it seems that the country's turning into an unstable situation just briefly how serious could it get there in tunisia. today oh i have. many people out there and people two thousand. and everyone's really

upset you know how it happened yeah. right now pretty. we don't know going to happen we share. that in. you know. ok for us thank you very much indeed for joining us live from tunis foreign correspondent in the capital of china is you. it's predicted the outcome of this year's general election in germany could be majorly swayed by the kind of the differing approaches towards the greek economic crisis angela merkel's made challenge of the country's former finance minister says she's being simply too harsh on athens r.d.p. to all of the reports. main contender to angola merkel in this year's general election the social democrat party's peacetime brooke has said this his vision for

how to deal with the greek problem is to give greece a little bit more time and for everybody else around the world to be essentially willing to spend a little bit more money now that includes germany of course this goes up against what has been angola merkel's message all the way which is that it's all by austerity and by a sturdy alone and cutting that deficit now that greece can get itself financially back on its feet now what is interesting is that in the german elections we're seeing the key battleground becoming greece. and one of the reasons that we've seen the s.t.p. . jump on this is because essentially they smell blood he said himself after the most recent local elections which took place last month that's change was possible this year and in order and one of the reasons he can say that is his party is absolutely killing angola merkel's coalition when it comes to domestic issues if you speak to the german people one thing they will all tell you is what the vast

majority will tell you is that they do support angola merkel's view when it comes to dealing with the euro crisis what we're now seeing is peacetime brooke saying i'm going to challenge angola merkel on her own turf and put forward my own theory about how to deal with greece heavy clashes have erupted in syria's capital damascus rebels launched attacks on army checkpoints in the regime controlled part of one of its neighborhoods meanwhile reports of surface again of fighting among the rebels themselves well for more let's talk to the editor in chief of the syria tribune online blog dr ali mohammed he joins me from dubai it's not the first time we've heard of clashes between different rebel groups why are these happening don't they all have the same goal. they have the same goal of course some of them want an islamic state some other parts just want to topple the regime some other parts hardly have a call at all. clash between two leaders or through

a group could result in terms of casualties and it happened several times in less than it was like weeks ago and nearly four years old no they don't have the same thought and they they are they don't like your ideology or the road map leading them to any of their goals and they're just worried anything that could cause a clash between them and it's happening all the time and that lack of unity is indicative in the fact that many fighters now in syria refuse to recognize the country's main opposition group the national coalition why is that because the coalition itself says it will be able to pacify all those various groups once present a sad is toppled. well you know we've heard this a lot from this you national council of the beginning and now from the coalition and this is just funny it's just like there was this will be lighter and the sun will be nicer ones different than it is now and that's not a very you have a d.v.d. they cannot actually confident and the right even when the user has listed most

pass it on it's a black lives with not of defending it because they know they cannot control it so normal be because lucian is dreamy you believe that they can control the groups are . the odds of winning and the most important part is that these are the princes and they are well if you created people that are not full of the shows they are not the fighters for freedom they are just workplaces and nobody will be able to control them but the syrian army and of course russia not long ago said that the syrian opposition is too fragmented to begin meaningful peaceful talk to the government that softer or what russia would like to see some internal dialogue some chat going on between all the parties involved in syria but that dialogue isn't going to happen there. let's examine what happened last week the head of the coalition who proposed some sort of down with the government despite the realistic conditions that he asked for but right after the events many of the members of the

coalition spoke against that and for the some three dozen or so yes they are like minded and let's face it the coalition was formed because the on hillary clinton's wish and request and it was a very clear that hillary clinton was the one behind in four weeks coalition and the coalition will only be able to do what its founder and main financing. entity would ask them to do and if they don't do that they will lose this financing they would lose the support so they have to do this and simply have they don't know how to hold and they cannot because they are not united and they don't have the same view was so it's a big mess and the west would like to see this big mess filling the country well let's talk about how this is affecting the wider region how the wider region can be involved in this iran has vowed to stand by syria after those apparent israeli airstrikes on that convoy last week is there anything that. can do now so help the assad regime. oh well first of all let's give door to her to write your own candle

up to help syria in a sort of idiom ergo only and yes you have and many other countries in the region can do all along to help syria by pressing if they think their iraq by supporting. three will be the syrian people by it if using the wishes of the western nations on the syrian people and mainly by facilitating dialogue and convincing or forces there to be the key to any progress in this crisis just like what russia is doing what china is doing it with many other countries are so interested enough you do say that they would not directly help sad him self that's quite potent comment you make. well this is this is this has been have very important the debates have the beginning of the crisis for example me myself i have been accused of supporting and although i used to be in the opposition before the crisis now we are supporting or come to be and this is what we are asking russia or iran or all of the three

nations in the world to stop what country and the will or people and if the will or people coincides with staying in power for the coming years then we get it but it's not because of the should help as that is because they should help the syrian people just finally israel justified in fearing serious consequences if the country does indeed collapse if the assad regime does go and perhaps the country plunges into anarchy oh well let's think you know about israel's interest if the regime. collapses this will be a huge disaster for the whole region not for israel personally for the whole region including israel turkey and many other countries dr allen muhammad from syria tribune online great to talk to you thank you very much indeed for your thoughts and joining us live here in r.t. thank you. we're coming from the russian capital with you twenty four hours a day coming up this hour in just a couple of minutes from now lack of medical care a public inquiry britain's health care system in a massive negligence and abuse scandal we'll bring you the details along with the

accounts of witnesses shortly plus other stories after the break. the way. the.

party lives here most go off to use a preparation sleepless nights and hard work russia has something to celebrate tomorrow the official count down to the twenty fourteen winter olympics begins the games have already broken the record books becoming the most expensive ever staged . reports on the changing face of the host city of sochi. piece by piece sort she's a limp dick dream is coming together continues around the clock but with

a year to go things are shaping up in the company in charge of construction has a simple message despite building everything from scratch russia will be ready. we plan to introduce all the facilities before the games start training facilities are ready practically all of them of host to test competitions all hotels and olympic villages are in the final phase of construction are being referred and furnished to show jewels to open in the autumn we plan to complete construction long before the end of the year said personnel can train the managers can gain experience in providing a good service but it cheating this goal has come at a staggering price tasting these games is costing around fifty billion dollars making them the most expensive in the intake history they cost ten times more than the last winter games in vancouver and ten billion dollars more than the beijing summer games however the results can already be seen and they are impressive if you

do take a quick look around you can see what money can buy at the center of the olympic park which has six families all within a stone's throw of each other to host the curling the skating and the ice hockey and this is the june in the crown the bolshoi i stay inside this fast hockey arena is prestigious i'm ready for use it will stage the under eighteen will championships in april i want to keep does an international event that will test the olympic venue before the games begin. i thought she twenty fourteen is hot cool because the limping park is done by the blacks in case there i'm cold because all the alpine events or take place. forty kilometers away. it is a similar story to say not much was paid before but there are also couture resorts has sprung up from nowhere to become the home of our fine. the biathlon and cross-country courses have also been created along with the pope's light track and

then there's something you can't fail to meet but if you make your way down the mountain will eventually come to hey one of the most dramatic sights at any winter olympics the ski jumping the larger ramp on the left hand side just for the men on the smaller one on the right is for the women he will be competing for the very first time in this event at an olympics next year. linking the so-called mountain and coastal trustees has not been easy even five hundred kilometers of am rail lines have been laid and they have transformed infrastructure that the city made believing the region will reap the benefits for years to come. our residents are aware of the conditions they have to face during changes especially. we certainly have many inconveniences because there's not a single street in sochi without renovation going on the roads are regularly dog which causes traffic jams all the time however the residents are aware that it's

necessary for their future brilliant future. she has undergone huge change in just six years but the transformation is almost complete and the black sea resort believes he can and will deliver against remember this time next year andrew. britain's prime minister david cameron has formally apologized for the health care scandal surrounding a major hospital that's after a public inquiry on earth swathes of negligence and abuse cases at the facility involving hundreds of patients resulted pretty boy reports claims of the ruthless mistreatment of those in need are increasingly being heard right across the country . more war stuff at hospital in september two thousand and eight

to disaster to total chaos when you walk through the door of the world if you smell a. crime no staff available. to those who was left angry. or in two months new shoes on the floor we've been there since breakfast on. the. line in a row for you see. medication wasn't given to. the death of john's wife is just one of the many horror stories to match from the now notorious stuff that hospital relatives say it was a lack of compassion on behalf of the staff that stripped many sick people of their dignity so much before that sandy would have been described to be modest and not long. in the most horrible circumstances. a

she'd have to go through what she went through julie baby's mother died at stafford in what she calls appalling circumstances but when she blew the whistle on the hospital's practice says she was faced with a cover up all the evidence was there that the hospital mid staffs was failing and yet the that was never shared with the public and i believe the same as in all the hospitals it's so much that a string of senior officials failed to take seriously data which showed the hospital significantly higher than average death rates relatives of over a thousand people never got to see them discharged from the hospital patients died needlessly off the suffering a catalogue of neglect left in their own excrement dehydrated and without painkillers it's the biggest scandal to hit the national health service in recent years but with budgets being slashed and red tape preoccupying hospital manages.

since health secretary is warning that there are little bits of stuff that dotted all across the u.k.'s health system the results of the public inquiry into the hospital's failings are expected to issue a damning verdict on the way the whole of the n.h.s. functions is soul destroying and that's a bit of stuff that every writer got to make say you know it's got to be made safe tomorrow because people can't continue to suffer but even with the glare of a public inquiry and the media spotlight it hasn't stopped last month that emerged that a four month old baby being treated for breathing problems was found with a dummy taped to his mouth to keep him quiet the nurse being investigated for the incident is the third member of staff at star to be disciplined in the last six months the hospital's chief executive has said we're sorry that despite the progress that has been made there are still some instances of care which fall below that which we want to provide sorry might be too late but the tide of public anger

swelling campaigners say it's time for westminster to overhaul britain's beleaguered health service before any more lives and needlessly lost polly boyko r t stafford. of course you can stay up to speed with all the news from around the world by logging on to our website harty dot com here are some of the stories that are waiting for you at the moment the ever watchful social network a new application is being developed for facebook which is able to track a user's location even when it's switched off you can find out all about that on the web site and to boldly go a group of russian scientists take the plunge diving into a frozen siberia lake escaping from the current outside temperatures in the region of minus fifty degrees celsius the footage much more for you which if you right know it r.t. dot com. speak your language. programs

and documentaries in arabic it's all here on our team reporting from the world talks of the r.p. interview true story are you. trying to the arabic to find out more visit or a big dog or teach dot com the. u.k. government is said to be considering the use of special black boxes to record people's internet activities are all in the neighborhood national security plans have got privacy advocates up in arms because she's the deputy director of big brother watch organization says the proposal must be further studied before being applied the u.k. government seems to think that it's necessary to monitor the communications of every person in great britain rather than actually looking for the people who are actually committing crimes they're going to drive those people further and further underground of the internet and they're only going to capture the the innocent and

the incompetent as far as i'm concerned not by any means saying that communications data isn't important but when you have the director general of m i five talking about the evidence that was used to make this spill and calling it pretty horowitz assumptions that we've been made that the m i five obviously going to need this information and will react to this information if they saying that this bill isn't based on fact it's based on fun see full. imitations of facts and this is why we need to go and have a very hard look at this bill get more evidence have a much further in-depth consultation to actually get the facts about what is needed and how it can be done. turbulence exploding engines a lack of fuel all of them a threat to a smooth flight and increasingly it seems drunk russian passengers can now be added to that list in the last few days alone a number of planes have been forced to make emergency landings because of boozed up travelers putting people's lives at risk now there's talk of a possible prohibition in the skies as what is an english discovered. please make

sure your seat belts are fastened the tray table is securely stowed and the passenger next to you is not intoxicated out of his mind passport tickets and alcohol of course there's a lot of allies that prohibit drinking on board but that doesn't stop many passengers if there is a will there is always a way to sneak that bottle on the plane. recently cases of unruly drunks have been springing up one after another one man attacked a police officer in the v.i.p.'s zone in a moscow airport thinking he was still in another country a different man if the four year old businessman on his way to the egyptian resort of god that lit up a cigarette and literally hit back at a flight attendant who tried to stop him the confrontation spiraled into an all out brawl on board should anybody have known table one pretty much he was demanding something crazy he was forcing himself into

a cockpit everyone was trying to hold him back and he was yelling let me out and forcing his way into the policy right here yes here's the catch though the resume normal in russia that would allow airlines to restrain much less to punish a mentally customers in fact flight attendants technically are not even allowed to physically subdue anyone having a fit of rage on their plane and that doesn't fly over well with the country's main airline that used up national could mean we could buy from one talk cruise onboard to be able to restrain such best interest we need a law for that and we also want to mince to the current air code which would allow not just their flag but all air carriers to be able to refuse service to bassan jurors who have created a problem on board passengers like to see on the end the leg honeymooners chris forced a plane heading for thailand to land in his back a stag it was after their festive mood quickly soured and turned into a fight when

a flight attendant told them to cut down on the liquor consumption. they stated two reasons for drinking fear following and celebrating their marriage this type of emotional travel drinking has gotten russian lawmakers thinking very seriously so we're not too distant future it seems passengers will be able to keep their emotions bottled up in moscow it in our tea. party live here in moscow time for the latest business news with natasha the touch france's president foresaw a long is joining the ranks of those who are warning about the euro being too high absolutely in fact he goes even further he insists actively managing the euro to make europe's recovery faster to speed it up i'll tell you all the details after a short break all right thanks josh.

speak your language. programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here on our team reporting from the world talks of the ip interview intriguing story for you. arabic to find out more visit our big. dog called. free. education free. for green. green. green. green. mold free

blog video for your media project free media down to r t dot com. it's exactly thirty minutes past the hour you're watching business r.t. welcome to the program in the latest balance of currency wars this week french president francois all law and said the eurozone should agree on a target for euro's exchange in other words he insisted on bringing down the value of the euro that in turn would make the european economy more competitive course on the international markets by making its products cheaper and approach that countries like china been practicing for years with great success this cost us in details let's cross over to our guest patrick young of p.d. advisors so mr young do you think that all laws initiative is actually a good idea. oh this is another example of the utter

economic incompetence and indeed dyslexia of president along he's possibly already the worst french president in history which is quite an achievement as he certainly had very competitive such as his previous answer when it comes to economic policy it's a tragedy that france is supposed to be got a system called the ground they call the grit hughes suv where the grits and the good are educated mr holland is a graduate of one of these schools yet he comes without actually managing to understand economics one hundred one what might be seen here you don't think that what he's proposing is a bible idea but what are the chances of him actually some support for this oh i think it's a pretty shitty to muster support is very low i mean once again what mr hollande is trying to do is become the sort of leader of the. mediterranean refusenik wing of the. in union

a group of people who simply believe that economic gravity doesn't apply to the. and the bill to be is he's running straight buying into a huge brick wall it's called germany and the european central bank and the truth is that while the european central bank is run by an italian it's run by an italian mario draghi who's very skilled in such things and he understands the fact that look central banks usually don't have that much of an amount of reserves the money they can play with that they can support a currency singlehandedly it's very easy to understand over there there's a whole economy commercial banks investors all manner of normal people going about their daily business they have more money than the central bank the idea is mr hollande wants to turn round and use the money that's in the central bank and he thinks somehow rather they can use all of the money that's in the central bank can tick on the economy which is hundreds of times larger than the reserves of the central bank it simply isn't going to work and it's not going to pass muster in

either virgin or indeed in frankfurt the headquarters of the european central bank . the signal is breaking out there a little bit but i do want to ask you another question the euro has been gaining value over the past several months in fact about ten percent in the past six months do you think that it's hurting the european economy and if you you were and china are in charge of its monetary policy would you worry at this point. well look the difficulty of the. ultimate lee it will try to blame. the euro's tone. that they. regard it as being somebody else's fault what we're seeing with the euro currency is a kind of relief rally because essentially so far the german european central bank axis has managed to hold the single currency together but the difficulty is that just doesn't suit economies like france or indeed if we or many others because essentially they've spent the post-war period always using their currency of

something they would try and devalue at will in order to sell more goods overseas so there is an issue that the currency is to a degree hurting these economies but the problem is those economies are complete not to amass in the first place ten percent of the economy doesn't ultimately change. the fundamental structural problem which is the french economy it's slow erotic it's disorganized the government is the major economic actor nearly fifty seven percent of the economy is the french government that's where the problem lies don't blame a puny little rice on the currency it's got nothing to do with the fundamental problem of feckless western european governments who can't manage their own affairs but messy and there does seem to be a trend i mean everybody is doing the best the bank japan the bank of england even the fed reserve is now actively must sashing the currency rate or do you think ultimately who is going to be there with the winner and what's going to determine

who actually wins in the currency wars you know the problem with currency wars is that everybody ends up a looser a great deal of money is invested by the central banks which they simply end up losing they try to competitively devalue again and steep further. ultimately they induce more volatility into the marketplace making it more difficult and more complex for exporters to export and it just becomes a man i'm not sure we're seeing at the moment the world should be expanding in a globalized free trade movement and actually what we're seeing is that the western nations many eastern nations are simply trying to bigger the nuber and that's not good for the world economy because it's. not going to help stability and it's not going to help groups thank you very much for your time sir patrick young of p.v. advisors and speaking of the currency wars we just saw an example of how it actually works on the equity markets a sharp drop of the japanese yen in the previous trading session brought pretty

have to gains on the nikkei on wednesday if in fact in the day at the highest level in about four years over in the states where the trade is active this hour the indices are pretty much flat apple is rallying on better than expected earnings but other stocks are struggling to find their direction. to europe shares ended their trading session in the mix zone and london the footsie close to ten percent above the line thanks to be quarterly reports more than half of the european companies in fact this quarter managed to beat analysts expectations germany's dax lost more than one percent here in russia the indices ended the trading day in the red down by roughly the same less than three quarters of a percent each in on russia managed to buck the downward trend it was up three percent for the day and on the currency markets the euro was almost at a one week low to the dollar ahead of the european central bank's meeting on

thursday here in moscow good ruble ended the day a lower to both currencies as you can see there. russia's central bank on thursday indicated taming the inflation is its priority for the next quarter as for the warring rates which is something that russia's president vladimir putin recently said was a major factor they were so high they were stifling economic growth the central bank chairman sergei ignites have said they will come down as soon as the regulator succeeds in controlling the inflation and as you can see here we take personal loans as an example they are significantly higher in the in russia than in developed countries the same of course goes for corporate loans of russia's businessmen and blamed the central bank for crippling the country's economy in an exclusive interview to business hard t. l. and m. tycoon ledger posco told me the high cost of capital kills businesses.

tenser money and sentiment should not see to the comfortable chairs in the teachin as it's a risk structural problem there is inflation which could because six should be both in the course what's going on when the when the result of the solution and result cost of capital was in the cost of that and this is something that should be changed we did. for it's part of the central bank throws the ball back into the businessman's court it argues that the lack of a reliable burra wars is one of the reasons why the rates stay so higher correspondent than teleco explains. curbing inflation that's what russia's central bank will focus on and that's why it's keeping the refinance rates high the bank just doesn't want to flog the economy with a lot of cheaply quiddity and on leash and place and despite pleas of many a prominent businessman and state officials the bank stands firm as you've just

heard our legs are pasta has accused the central bank of lying about the true reasons off inflation they also criticize the bank for keeping the rates hard saying that it holds back the economic growth and i quote sachs blot out of the russian economy well i've also a central bank official to respond to the criticism it's very emotional emotional some of them are very much interested you know to be. in the discussion. to make sure now we have some kind of balance a balance and zero so in that case some additional measures. to inflation in russia is growing it was six point six percent last year and judging by the january figures this year could be even higher goldman sachs

economist say that the not expect russia central bank to card interest rates especially as the country's g.d.p. growth increased last year and is expected to meet three point seven percent goal for two thousand and thirteen amounts all the latest from us and business coming up next it's our interview where we talk to be former cia officer and with war torture of john kerry jaco that's just ahead for you after a short break. wealthy british style.

markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report on our hold it. hold it hold. her mother. good speech. she. her. wish. you luck

good. luck. and i'm a. little fun i'm a little. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then he limps something else. so you hear so you some other part of it and realized everything you thought . i'm sorry is a big. john kiriakou with me today former cia official who blew the whistle on the agency's

torture practices after nine eleven john kiriakou served as the chief of counterterrorist operations in pakistan mystically are always with quarterly praise at the agency for his role in the capture of our boys obeidallah who back in two thousand and two was thought to be third in command and now years later john kerry is heading to prison he was just sentenced to. two and a half years in jail mr getting out with thank you so much for coming thanks for having me i really appreciate it i know that time is of much value to you and your family now before you. find yourself behind bars. you were convicted of revealing the identity of an agent or freelance reporter who by the way never even published it you said you regretted shape sharing the name of the agent of the officer in that new york apologized for it but you also said it was not why the government went after you why do you think the government went after

you i've i have never believed that my case was about a leak i have always believed that my case is about torture when i went on a.b.c. news in december two thousand and seven and i said that not only was the cia torturing prisoners but that the torture policy was an official u.s. government policy that was approved at the very top by the president of the united states himself. the cia filed what's called a crimes report against me the next day with the justice department the justice department never stopped investigating me from december of two thousand and seven until i was finally arrested in january of two thousand and twelve so to say that this that this case is a result of a name that was found in a in a an attorney's brief at guantanamo is just simply not true that they were looking for something that they were going for something to pin on me what i find most

gracious about your case is ahead you've been actually accused of torture of human rights violations you wouldn't have gone to jail know. they they would dismiss any accusation because the u.s. government has classified everything related to its torture practices but yet you go to prison because he talked about it why do you think this administration president obama who signed an executive order to stop torture at the very beginning of his first term why do you think he's protecting folks from the previous administration most people don't realize this but president obama has surrounded himself with the same intelligence advisors who advised president bush through most of the first term the cia had the same deputy director that bush had the same director of operations that bush had john brennan who is president obama's new

designee to be the cia director and until what a week ago or so was the deputy national security adviser was under president bush the director of the national counterterrorism center and up to his eyeballs in torture policy so even though we changed presidents there was really no change of intelligence advisors at least not on counterterrorism john brennan you mentioned john brennan and i want to ask you about him the future head of the cia what kind of a cia chief is he going to be in your opinion i think he's going to be somebody who will be extremely aggressive. and who will probably be comfortable. walking on the edge of the law you worked with him i did i worked with john brennan for many years and i know him pretty well mr kaplan you yourself supported torture before you were against that what happened what changed your position well let me correct you on that and this is something that that i think most americans missed

in my original n.b.c. interview i was trying to draw a distinction between whether torture was right and wrong or whether it worked i believed it was wrong and i called it torture and i said that torture was official policy that's on the one side on the other side the cia had told us internally at the time that it was working what year was that that was in two thousand to two thousand and three they were telling us that it was working we now know from the inspector general's report that was released in the spring of two thousand and nine that that was a lie that the cia was lying even to those of us inside the cia and i think it was just to protect themselves and to protect the policy but it never worked did you have a personal experience related to torture where you personally involved in torture no thank god i was never a person involved in torture when i returned from pakistan in the early summer of two thousand and two where i had been chief of counterterrorism operations i was

asked by a senior officer in the cia's counterterrorist center if i wanted to be trained in in the use of these torture techniques and i said no i had a moral problem with it and i didn't want to be associated with it there were fourteen of us at the time who were. made the offer two of us said no and then one of us not me the other guy changed his mind so i was the only one who was made the offer who declined. because at that time you already believed that it wouldn't work i just thought i didn't know if it would work i mean they were telling us it would but i just believed it was wrong you know it at the cia part of the cia's culture is to couch all issues in shades of grey you have to be very comfortable working in morally nebulous situations or

legally nebulous situations but there are some things that really are black and white and i believe that that was a black and white issue there's something that i think you will find interesting and something that i'd like you to comment on polls by the american red cross show that the majority of americans find torture acceptable sixty percent of young people agree whereas four years ago torture was largely condemned in the u.s. . how did this become the new normal what happened in those four years i think that many people who told pollsters in the early or middle part of the last decade were reacting to president bush little by little president obama adopted most of president bush's counterterrorism policies and just because he happens to be a nobel peace prize winner barack obama most americans who haven't paid much attention have just bought iraq because i think it's a question of education here domestically execute people need to be informed that

hollywood have a role to play i think hollywood had a role to play i think that zero dark thirty for example did a grave disservice to counterterrorism zero dark thirty perpetuates this grand lie that torture led to the. the killing of osama bin laden it's just simply not true myths often become history one comedian here said movies it was about zero dark thirty about the way it's serious movies is where. americans learned their history it's true what myths what other myths do you see being perpetuated now related to the war on terror i think one of the great myths and i chuckle to myself because it always seemed so ridiculous to me was president bush's statement that they hate us because we love freedom. i know al-qaeda

i've captured al qaeda fighters i've had conversations sitting across the table like i am with you with al-qaeda leaders and i can tell you from firsthand personal experience that the reason people take up arms against us is because of a lack of education yet that i understand that the united states can't educate the whole wall no we can't but we can we can help other countries develop an infrastructure so that they can educate themselves becoming more and more about your encounters with those what are their impressions that you have for the first fighter i ever caught was in one thousand year old boy from tunisia and the only reason he went to afghanistan was because he had nothing else to do he had no skills and no way of making a living and he wanted to get married so the local in mom said if you want to make some money you know what you should do you should go to afghanistan and make jihad against the americans if you do that i know somebody who will pay your family five hundred dollars and you can use that for a dowry and you can you can get

a wife so this kid had nothing against the united states he had never even really thought about the united states so from your experience you saw no ideology i saw very little you see ideology and some of the older fighters some of the leaders the camp commanders for example sure there's ideology there but in my short time in pakistan i captured fifty two al-qaeda fighters i can count on one hand the number of people who were real ideologues who really were there for jihad who were really there to kill americans three out of fifty two the perception of one condiment two has gone a long way since two thousand and eight when he was a burning and a highly controversial issue most recently you know the state department has shut down the office that was working to shut down the guantanamo prison is that this administration's way of saying. forget about guantanamo let's move on i think it is

i think it is again where's the outrage the american people really don't care if kuantan the most open or closed this administration it appears decided not to bother about interrogations kuantan prisoners and all that and just to bomb whoever seems suspicious was drones what do you think about this administration's no prisoners policy we find ourselves murdering people in many cases children with no evidence whatsoever that they're involved in any criminal or terrorist activity and what this does is it encourages other people to take up arms against us john brennan the architect of the drone program basically and it was last year i think when he claimed that u.s. drone strikes caused no civilian deaths in pakistan over the prior year which was an outright lie by so many accounts do you think we're going to see more transparency with regards to drones with john brennan at the helm of the cia you

know. no i don't with john brennan. secrecy is the key word. unless of course you know if he chooses to leak for the benefit of the administration what did you expect when you decided to go public to come clean on on on torture at the cia i mean if your wife worked at the cia and she was fired because of him and your father of five and you were going to prison what future did you envision for yourself five years ago. i didn't envision prison in my future five years ago i expected there to be a national debate on whether or not we wanted to use torture as an official us policy and now i'm very happy proud actually that i played a role in that debate and now the law of the land is that torture is illegal i'm

very proud of that i am frankly didn't expect that the government would would go after me so relentlessly i stood in the snow for two hours to vote for president obama i really believed that this was a positive change i believed that he deserved that nobel peace prize or only because i expected things to change so dramatically at the beginning of his first term so no i never believed i would be going to prison under a president obama never. that's been i think my biggest disappointment but you haven't seen a dramatic change i haven't seen any change no torture he stopped torture sure but in terms of counterterrorism policy i think the obama administration is largely an extension of the bush administration. and stick it out with thank you for the interview i wish all the best thanks very much for having me.

there are twelve cities in the united states in which half of the people with hiv aids lives within a year of a diagnosis of. over six to two percent of patients. with this is a problem that frankly is substantially preventable it was like the big elephant in the room and nobody wanted to talk about it there were really good public health campaigns if people really focused on this problem you certainly should be able to hold a lot less h i think a lot less human suffering. we speak your language might be well enough but the. news programs and documentaries and spanish what matters to you breaking news a little tonnage of angles keep these stories. a huge here.

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